Focussing with MF lenses

[pirlewie]

I used a lot of MF-lenses (Olympus OM, Voigtlaender, Canon RF) with my Pan GF1. But I am missing some control, It should be possible to give some focus-information when manual focussing. Lets say, you have selected a "spot, f.i.in the middle, and an indication (red or green) My idea is that wenn focussing, you also change the contrast in that spot. The changing could be showed with green (sharper) or red (unsharper). Or may be more sophisticated. The solution now, with 10x zooming on a spot is fine but a bit difficult to use out of hand!

 

[Streetshooter]

Do you have the EVF for the GF1? I use it sometimes with my J8.
Works ok, better than with the screen.

 

[xyzzy]

Over on dpreview, there is talk about a focus confirm adapter. This is an extra chip which needs to be glued to the lens adapter and tells the AF system to check for "focus" if the shutter release is half-pressed. It seems to work with the pens and possibly (not confirmed!) the GF1. Maybe this is what you are looking for but it is somewhat of kludge. In dutch I would say "gepiel"

 

[deirdre]

I have dodgy eyes, so manual focus lenses are a challenge for me. Worse, one of the settings on the GF1's EVF are particularly sharp for me (I probably need new glasses).

My usual method is to go just visibly out of focus one way, then the other, then settle in between.

 

[pirlewie]

manual focus with ease

I am thinking at:
Because Pana and Oly deliver adapters for Leica-M, FT and Oly-OM ---> MFT, I thought they could care for a nice Manual-focus solution. first problem: Do you think it would be possible to use the AF-contrast-technique on manual focus-lenses to give an indication wenn focussing?

 

[xyzzy]

I am thinking at:
Because Pana and Oly deliver adapters for Leica-M, FT and Oly-OM ---> MFT, I thought they could care for a nice Manual-focus solution. first problem: Do you think it would be possible to use the AF-contrast-technique on manual focus-lenses to give an indication wenn focussing?

The chip you need to glue to your adapter mentioned in the thread I mentioned above does just that - so it is possible in principle. One would probably need to do the same as the AF does: pass the focus point and then retrace. Not ideal. Also, apparently this "solution" does not seem work with most Panasonic cameras (don´t ask my why) but does with all Pens.
I agree though - a nice solution would be better. It should be possible for Panasonic or Olympus to put this as selectable option in firmware (as Olympus does with focus length for IBIS), but I suspect that this will always be a less than ideal solution and therefore unsuitable for the greater public. Which is probably the reason it is not available, unfortunately. I am somewhat hoping for hacked firmware along the lines of many Canon cameras....

 

[pirlewie]

thanks, I 'll sleep a night on it! But there is coming a beautifull lens "Voigtländer 25mm 0.95 with MFT-mount", but with primitive manual focussing it will give not much pleasure.

 

[dko22]

I've just got my metabones Nikon adaptor. Although it's early days in testing, first results seem to show much more accurate focus and sharper results than using the D700 focus confirmation (and the exposure is good as well). So I look on the real manual focus plus magnification with the G series as being a real boon. Will update after I've done more tests and perhaps got the odd not totally boring image. Perhaps I've yet to get the best out of my 50m 1.8 AIS and 105mm f2.5 AI --probably when I get a GH2:smile:

David

 

[pirlewie]

Thanks, I agree with your solution! How could we tell Oly / Pana what we should like!